


Two Florizels

by Monsterunderkilt



Series: The Manse [13]
Category: Actor RPF, Celebrities - Fandom, RPF - Fandom, Real Person Fanfic - Fandom, Real Person Fiction
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26685340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monsterunderkilt/pseuds/Monsterunderkilt
Summary: Alan and Sir Ken recite Shakespeare to win my hand
Series: The Manse [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1209447
Kudos: 1





	Two Florizels

“I bless the time  
When my good falcon made her flight across  
Thy father's ground.”

I cover my mouth and giggle like a schoolgirl as I glance back and forth between Alan’s face and the highlighted lines of the play on my phone screen. I sit up straighter on my barstool and recite my part:

“Now Jove afford you cause!  
To me the difference forges dread; your greatness  
Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble  
To think your father, by some accident,  
Should pass this way as you did: O, the Fates!  
How would he look, to see his work so noble  
Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how  
Should I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold  
The sternness of his presence?”

Alan’s eyes twinkle as much as his voice. He takes my hand and kneels before me.

“Apprehend  
Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,  
Humbling their deities to love, have taken  
The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter  
Became a bull, and bellow'd; the green Neptune  
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-robed god,  
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,  
As I seem now—”

“Whoa, whoa, am I not mistaken that I hear the Bard being surreptitiously recited in my house?”

Alan looks past my shoulder and sighs. “It’s Madam’s house, K Bran.”

I glance back at Sir Ken as he rather stiffly crosses his arms over his chest, moulding his freshly shaven face into a scowl.

I smile. “And we’re not being surreptitious in the least.”

“He was whispering ever so softly!” Ken says, his voice pitching into an old man whistle.

I feel my heart soften, but Alan rolls his eyes. “We’re in the kitchen, mate,” he says. “It echos. I don’t need to project my fabulous tones any further than a foot.”

Sir frowns at me. “You let him be Florizel?”

I shrug. “He said he memorised some stuff. I let him prove it.”

Alan smirks and tilts his head. “You’re gonna need to know a lot more than just _Hamlet_ , Hamlet!”

I turn back to Alan and wink at him. He continues:

“Their transformations  
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,  
Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires  
Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts  
Burn hotter than my faith!”

“Alright, get off it,” Ken says sternly as he walks over and takes my hand out of Alan’s. He squeezes my shoulder and waves Alan away. “This is my job, you bawdy rogue!”

Alan snaps to standing, chin held high, hands on hips. “Go to, go to, sirrah!”

I widen my eyes at such a show of disrespect. I look up at Ken, whom I would never call anything less than a full-fledged “Sir.” He sighs deeply, his face slackened with ennui. “Go to yourself, you rascally bull’s pizzle.”

Alan appears wounded and offended at such language. “You would spew such baseness in the presence of our Madam?” Then he gently covers both my ears but I can hear him just fine. “She loves this, doesn’t she? Us trading Elizabethan jabs?”

“You bet she does,” Ken says.

Alan releases my ears. I stare at him with my knowing smile and he just plays along. “You win this time, Sir Kenneth, but mark my words, I shall return to win the lady’s hand.”

Ken pats my shoulder. “Come, my dear, let us rid ourselves of this... slender knave.”

I get up and wink at Alan as he turns and skips out of the kitchen, whistling a snatch from a Franz Ferdinand song I love. He’s a special one.

Ken drapes a cashmere-wrapped arm around my shoulders and leads me outside. Every little movement of the soft wool against my bare shoulders sends a fresh tingle through my spine to curl up next to my quivering ubuli.

Real September weather has descended upon the Manse and as soon as we reach the garden, the cool breeze does its best to bring equilibrium to my hot face. Ken silently leads me a little ways down the path through the semi-wild jungle, shiny ferns and elephant leaves reaching out from either side, brushing our legs and arms. Suddenly, Sir steps in front of me, spins around and lowers to one knee. My heart seizes. Sir Ken smiles warmly, softly pressing both of my hands like delicate poppy blooms between his palms.

“For I cannot be  
Mine own, nor any thing to any, if  
I be not thine. To this I am most constant,  
Though destiny say no.”

I instinctively jerk my hands to cover my face, but he holds them firmly. I am touched to notice that they’re actually shaking, growing hot and clammy by the second. I find I am dumbstruck, honestly surprised. I was not expecting this at all, but why the fuck not, amiright?

Sir Ken grins nervously as he blinks up at me. “What say you, Cait? Is it a bargain?”

I close my eyes and conjure up all my powers of memory to come up with the correct response. I tilt my head toward the sky and say

“I cannot speak  
So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better:  
By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out  
The purity of his.”

My eyes come down, returning his bright blue gaze. He kisses my palms—both of them—and stands again. He loses twenty years from his face as he chuckles, then bends down for a chaste kiss. I lean into it, wishing he’d go deeper, but this is the charm of his selective prudence. He must know it flicks on all my switches.

I steal a second quick kiss from him, and we both laugh as we hug in the bushes. I am on my tip-toes as I hang upon his neck like the proverbial new-married wife, hardly to be shook off. I breathe deeply of his scent, not wanting to turn away from the warmth of his embrace.

Sir Ken kisses my hair and rubs my back. “I’m glad that worked.”

I laugh against his chest. “Why wouldn’t it work?”

“If Alan weren’t in there just now I would have had to bend down on the hard kitchen floor and that would’ve killed my knee and that’s just not properly romantic at all.”

“Ohhhh Kenny…” I say, shaking my head. “Kenny Kenny Kenny… Will your knees be able to carry me off to bed just now, or—”

Before I finish my thought, he deftly sweeps me up off the ground and stomps toward the house. I clutch his neck and kiss his jawline as we pass through the kitchen.

“You’re a slip of a thing, aren’t you? Angels weigh more than you.”

“So I’m not an angel anymore?”

“No, sweetheart, you’re my wife now.”

The swoony sigh that escapes my throat also contains my soul, and I hope it returns to my body just in time for the moment we shut that bedroom door behind us.


End file.
